Jeff Bezos’s Rocket Engine Nears Debut, Ending US Reliance on Russia
- Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine will replace Russian-made RD-180
- Space Force sees progress toward a test launch by December
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An engine made by Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin LLC appears on track to show it can power heavy payloads to space for the Pentagon after several years of delay, bringing the US closer to ending its politically fraught dependence on a Russian-made model.
Blue Origin predicted in 2014 that its BE-4 engine would be ready by 2017 to launch the new Vulcan rocket built by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of top Pentagon contractors Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. But the Government Accountability Office as recently as June cited “continued technical challenges in developing a US-produced rocket engine.”